If you weren’t in attendance at Metropolis Fremantle last night, you missed a show that went far beyond a reunion gig —it was a high octane, glorious and violent reminder of why The Dillinger Escape Plan were once crowned the most dangerous live band on the planet. On the basis of tonight’s show after an eight year absence you can’t help feel they’re come back to retain that crown.
From the second Dillinger hit the stage, it was clear this wasn’t just nostalgia this was something more. As someone who has seen all of their Australian visits over the years this was the final piece of the puzzle: original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis back at the helm for the first time in over two decades. The anticipation could be cut with a knife and the energy in the room was nuclear once the red lasers came up and the images coalesced behind the drums. With the band immediately on fire, angular and addictively aggressive, you were pushed and bashed into the sonic youth of that first long player. And Dimitri’s voice which was both unrelenting and unfiltered as it did on ‘Calculating Infinity’, but with the weight of two decades of absence behind it.
Dillinger played it straight tonight and let that outpouring of youthful angst that is ‘Calculating Infinity’, with all its complex time signatures, unpredictable rhythms, and intense, high-voltage energy lead the way. There were no gimmicks, no sentimental speeches, just pure, unhinged, highly animated, wild catharsis.
The band, despite their absence, is still a force of nature. Watching Ben Weinman manage to somehow play mathematically impossible riffs while hurtling himself across the stage and catapulting his entire body into every note defies physics. It’s the kind of ‘eye-of-the-storm’ chaos that would tear lesser bands apart, but Dillinger somehow makes it tighter. Every time you felt things would fall apart or crash and burn, it just all clicked back together again: and it’s that dangerous balance that makes Dillinger so utterly compelling.
Opening the night and the rest of the tour was the genre-defying force of nature ‘Ho99o9’, who delivered an indescribable sonic umami that fused hardcore, industrial, punk, hip hop, and sheer horror-show theatrics. Just drums, electronics and vocals, their set felt like a ritual—part rave, part riot, and all gloriously dark-lit chaos. It was the perfect prelude to the Dillinger storm, and left almost all of us who weren’t already in on it, wanting more.
This wasn’t just a gig—it was a rebirth and an exorcism. A communal detonation. A mushroom cloud of rage and joy. You don’t go to a Dillinger show to hear songs, you go to feel them and hope that you get back to tell the tales. With Minakakis back, stalking and striding the stage, it felt right – dangerous, of course, but also like a snapshot in time that held both the past and the future.
If Fremantle was the warning shot then the rest of the country should be on high alert. This tour isn’t about legacy—it’s about dominion. And if you’re not there, you’re going to wish you were. Don’t even think about this one – tickets won’t last and a night like this is priceless and it doesn’t come around twice. To all the Dillinger veterans out there – you need to see this slice of Dillinger; and for all the kids that never witnessed the band in their glory years you deserve this, it will open your eyes and plunge you into a place where music is dark, dangerous and gloriously alive.
SETLIST
Destro’s Secret | The Running Board | The Mullet Burden | Clip the Apex… Accept Instruction | Calculating Infinity | Sugar Coated Sour | Sandbox Magician | 4th Grade Dropout | Abe the Cop | Weekend Sex Change | Variations on a Cocktail Dress | Monticello | Jim Fear | Come to Daddy (Aphex Twin cover) | 43% Burnt
New Photos and Gallery Later, it was a late one!
